Antebellum
by Gnosienne
Summary: Surviving is what they did best. She loved him, true. He loved her, yes. What's an age-gap of a hundred and seventy five years when you don't belong in the same time stream, anyway? 'Victory has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan'. Antebellum- a tale of two orphans and the hapless Hobbit that loves them.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE:

* * *

 _The night was bitterly cold._

 _A lone figure stood on the kerb- beneath the lamppost. He was bathed in its golden light, smoke curling out from the cigarette held between his shaky fingers. The streets were still damp from the evening's downpour, however the scent of damp earth was entirely absent. That particular scent hadn't been smelled in years for a thick layer of water absorbent concrete covered all open space._

 _It was remarkable really, how the world that would come to be had already begun it's journey there_

 _Taking a deep drag, he flicked the butt into the swirling stormwater in the steetside gutters._

 _The man stretched out and yawned- his stubble covered jaw cracking with the strain. It had been a long wait. The announcement was due any moment now. A nervous energy seemed to permeate the very air he breathed, serving as a shield against the desperate exhaustion that he felt. He could hear a distant hum of conversation that ebbed and flowed with the arrival of new reporters._

 _Soon the streets would be overflowing with journalists and the odd civilian, waiting to hear the words the world needed, no, hungered to hear._

 _Thee days ago, the island state of Hawaii had been all but obliterated by enemy attack. As for the identity of the enemy, no one was certain. No one had claimed responsibility. The land of plenty was under attack and the her allied Nations were obligated to rise to her defence._

 _Yet they had stalled. And stalled. And stalled some more._

 _Until Paris had been reduced to an over-large crater, visible from space._

 _And here they were. Waiting for the official declaration of war. The Prime Minister had arrived and was being held under tight security within the building behind them. The doors were kept shut and the armed guards placed in front of them were only formality. Manned drones buzzed overhead, looking for suspicious activity, its trajectory controlled from several hunred miles away. Sniper rifles poked out of the half opened windows around the building, some seen but most unseen. One wrong move and he wagered he'd have a clean hole right through the centre of his forehead._

 _The crowd was anxious and the cold seemed to add to their sense of panic- locking their limbs and freezing their joints. Several of the men and women had their collars turned up against the gaining wind._

 _The rain had started again._

 _Suddenly cameras flashed behind him, each illuminating the world for a tiny fraction of time. The gentle murmur grew louder and louder until the screech of tires against wet tar threw the collected throng in excitement. Shouts rang out._

 _The General's here. Move out of the way. The General's come. Move move move. Has a decision been reached, General? Has the Prime Minister released a statement? General, here!_

 _His heartbeat began to race. He hurried to catch up with the crowd following the General and his entourage. Men clad in black, carrying large rifles on their backs whisked them up the front steps and into the large doorway. The reporters were filling into the foyer of a tall building, its glass panels shimmering in the wet night. It was brightly lit inside and warm and inviting. They surged forward, eager to get the news first and just as eager if not more to get out of the freezing rain. Heavily armed security stopped the majority of them._

 _Only senior journalists, they were told. Go home, the civilians were told, go home and wait for the announcement._

 _Before the man could fight his way up the steps and throw the guards, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He scrambled for it with numb fingers but before he could accept the call, the phone stilled. He plugged his earphones in and opened his voice mail._

 _'Lenny, come home. She's coming. Lenny? Lenny? The contractions have started. Lenny come home'_

 _Panic lanced through his being and with less than a moment's thought, he abandoned his assignment. His baby was coming!_

 _Running his hand through his thick, black hair and plucking the earbud out, he jogged to his car. Inside the building the clamour rose to a fevered crescendo._

 _Others would record the weary Prime Minister's words declaring Wartime but Lenny Young had more important things to deal with. What followed were years of conflict and turmoil, change and stagnation-a brave new world born as the radioactive dust settled._

 _This was the world little Elle Young grew up in. These were the monsters Elle Young grew up to love. These were the scars on the earth Elle Young would never see heal. Never see heal because Elle was destined for a great adventure._

 _One that would draw her from the damaged, yet beautiful world she knew and deposit her in another._


	2. Where to, Miss Young?

**WHERE TO MISS YOUNG?**

 _ **If one were to look closely at Victory, one would find it indiscernible from Defeat**_

* * *

 _All the world is a wilderness now. A strange sort of wilderness, one that had cement instead of soil, glass instead of leaves and soot and ash instead of pollen. Orderly. Clinical. Cold. Blue, grey and black._

 _Gone were the days where the warmth of the sun could soak into the earth and between your toes. People didn't know how to miss what they'd destroyed. Guilt morphed into resentment and resentment grew into anger.  
Anger grew into war and the cycle began again._

A man walked along the damaged pavement, careful to not trip on the many pot-holes and broken rocks that lay upon it. He was dressed in fine threads- black and grey and gold glinted at his wrist, brilliant in the dreary evening. People seemed to automatically move out of his way, clearing a path in front of him.

 _Crowds tended to do that with him. He was a Big Man and one did not court the wrath of his kind. The people knew as they always do. His men controlled the streets. Nothing happened on it without their permission. You lived and died at their command, whether you knew it or not._

 _He strode with great purpose, quick but measured - calculated. He had somewhere to be, that much was clear.._

 _The crowd had thinned out, he realised.  
He was entering a less than savoury locality- a place where people, sensible people, didn't loiter about for no reason. Not if they wanted to leave with their kidneys intact._

 _He mustn't have known this, poor man, for almost as soon as he turned a corner he was beset by a small figure. Spindly legs wrapped about his waist as the it hoisted itself onto his back. He could feel the warmth of breath on his neck and a sharp prick. And everything went black._

 _Men, for all their arrogance, could never control the young and the hungry for they would make all the shows of acquiescing before turning around and biting the very hand that held its face to the tar. He ought to have known._

 _The fool knew no more._

 _Not for an entire hour when he awoke and found himself sans clothing, sans shoes and sans gold watch._

* * *

Elle was running late.

Her apprenticeship with The Doctor had her operating on her last fucking nerve at all times. She was his little bitch and she had to thank him for that honour- picking up after him, suturing open incisions after the completion of a surgery, bringing him coffee, running the drip. She had to do it all. The worst part? She had to pay him for the chance.  
Elle liked the idea of being a Doctor, Elle did. She wanted to save lives. However, she also liked the security it offered her. Everyone needs a Doctor, even the very rich. She would never go hungry again.  
Yes, she had to surrender any free time she had. Sure, she had to eat only two meals a day instead of the usual three but it would be worth it in the end.

That's what she'd been telling herself for years.

Elle had but ten minutes left before the start of her shift at the Cornucopia. She had to get into costume, get fitted with the prosthetics and throw back a shot of gin all within the span of ten minutes. Pulling on her age-softened leather gloves, she climbed onto her motorcycle and kicked off the stand. As with most of her possessions, the motorcycle was inherited. It had been her father's before he'd married her mum and he'd cared for it with all the love he had left after her death.

It rumbled like a grumpy old troll and spluttered to life. As with all of her possessions, it was in dire need of repair.

The streets were crawling with crime and Elle had learned to take care of herself. Tazers. Elbows. Cricket bats. Teeth. Nails. Guns. All were fair game in an unfair world. The bag she had slung over her thin shoulders clunked dangerously. She didn't carry these objects lightly. The world had grown darker around her and after being hurt repeatedly, Elle realised something. It wasn't about defence anymore. No, the time for that had past. It was hurt or be hurt. Stun or be raped.

Elle hadn't been dangerous. She wouldn't hurt a fly, they said. She might mug it, sure. But hurt it? Never.

She didn't contest it but she doubted the veracity of that statement. She always had, but now she had reason to.

If anyone, at any point, tells you that living through a nuclear winter is worth it? Sock them over the head and get out of there. It fucking sucks.

It sucks for the usual reasons, and then for a few completely unexpected reasons as well. The first devastating blow was delivered through the air. Poisoned and radioactive, it sucked the life out of vegetation. Crops just wouldn't grow. Year after year. Famine became the new normal. Starvation the new epidemic. The small reserves of water they had was rendered undrinkable. If hunger had driven men to crime, thirst had driven them to madness. The whole world had collectively gone mad.

Men scrambled for power. Large men, rich men, intelligent men. They swiftly rose to the top of the economic totem pole and built themselves a new world order. One that suited their purposes; their lifestyle of excess and hedonism. They built themselves worlds of wonder, augmented with technology and poor, desperate, pretty women.

That's where girls like Elle came in.

At first glance, Cornucopia wasn't imposing in size nor was it very pretty. At second glance, it was downright ugly.  
The non-descriptive walls were painted a sad looking beige. The floors were stripped of any carpeting that may have covered it once. The lights were fluorescent and threw even the prettiest face into ugly relief.  
The front facade of the building itself served to hide it in plain sight. It was illegal, after all, what they did in there. It was illegal though the very people who legislated and passed the bill were the ones who spent most of the time in there. But what's a little pretending, right? Everyone does it.  
Cornucopia could have been any old office building if not for the incredibly plush armchairs scattered around the single room and therein lay the pretense.

Attached to each armchair was an IV infusion set- a simple plastic bag holding clear fluid, a central attachment line and a connector. A smallish helmet like object lay on the armchair itself.

This was why the men and women flocked to Cornucopia. It was for intents and purposes, a drug den. And Elle for all intents and purposes was a drug dealer. Well, she'd started out as a Medico-aid, inserting the IV lines and ensuring the working of the pumps. Keep the customer comfortable, she had been told. Keep them upright. Wipe the drool off their faces and if anyone good luck forbidding, dies, well, take anything valuable off of them.  
She had started off well within the conventions of morality, however, the owner had taken one long look at her and had her fitted out for her own set of costumes. Costumes to make the 'experience' more realistic, she was informed.

So then she learned to pretend. Dress up as Queen and Fairy, assassin and whore- anything the customer wanted. She dressed up pretty, put on a happy face and stroked and petted and kissed the hallucinating fool in the armchair.

Was she a whore? No.

Was she for purchase? Absolutely.

War had been hard on everyone.

* * *

 _'Get in. Be quick about it, now. You're already late. Come in. Why are you always covered in guts? Jesus, Ellie. You don't have time for a shower. Here, give me your jacket. Have you been stealing The Doctor's cigarettes again? I told you not to. It stinks to high heavens, girl and it'll kill you dead, first chance it gets'_

Elle was greeted with a barrage of words. Delivered with great alacrity and dare she think it, concern? For after all, Philip was a friend. A large man with a larger heart, he'd taken young Ellie Young under his wing. He clucked over the dreadful state of her hair and he tutted over the cold-torn skin of her lips. He tightened her bra straps before she started and always, always gave her a hug.

Elle had been young, she supposed, for this line of work. Not quite eighteen, she'd joined in hopes of paying The Doctor's exorbitant training were few and far between. Their training was reserved for the rich and famous. The Uppers, they called themselves. She remembered wanting to become a Doctor when she was young, when the world was less fucked up. She had grand illusions of saving people, patching folk up and loving them back to health.

Elle hadn't been the smartest child.

No, Elle had been young and beautiful. Cornucopia had been the only logical option.

The Owner had stood her under the glare of a spotlight in nothing but her pants. He'd circled around her like a large bird of prey, poking here, prodding there, evaluating her attractiveness.  
She was a long person, he'd told her. That was the only way to describe her. Long limbs, long fingers, long hair, long nose, long eyelashes. She was long and men wanted her.

She didn't reply. She knew that. She'd known that particular fact since puberty. Girls, she was told, grew into an awkward stage between duckling and swan. However, she just grew long.

Puppy fat melted off her body and her cheekbones could have be used to peel carrots. She wondered if it was because she had starved so much as a child. She'd smile her little vulpine smile and promise herself that it wouldn't be for long. She'd grow fat and soft and content, just you wait. She just had to go through hell first.

She was twenty now. A round number. Clean. Not too old and not too young. She reveled in this strange sort of mediocrity. Her dreams of becoming a Doctor had lost any real desire to save lives. Why save the suffering? Why prolong their pain? No, she trained for an entirely selfish reason- security. No one questioned their kind. They were rich and powerful and it was the one profession that was accessible to anyone. One didn't become rich in this world ruled by nepotism, no. One was either born rich or died hungry.

Becoming a Doctor would save her.

 _'He's been here for an hour, Ellie. An hour! Gosh, you are lucky he isn't an itchy sort. His elbows are remarkably smooth, did you know? Strange man. Strange elbows. He's here every week and yet he has no tracks? Remarkable!'_

Though Philip had been Elle's first real friend. Her second friend had been Mr. Gee.

He'd sit in his armchair and pretend to trip, all while talking to Ellie. He'd regale with strange tales of travel and adventure and love. She'd been extremely suspicious at first but one did not mistrust Mr Gee for long.  
It just didn't happen.

His manners and his smile could bowl over a hissing cat.

He'd become her Patron. The one constant in the chaos of her life. She loved him jealously though he'd never once given her reason to be. He'd never once asked for another girl. Not even when Elle had come an hour late. Not even when Elle had failed to turn up all together.  
No. He didn't ask the Floorman for another girl, he had instead insisted on receiving The Doctor's number. He'd fixed up an appointment all so he and bring Elle a cuppa.

Warm and sweet. Just like Mr. Gee himself.

He was a tall man. Long, like her. She fancied that she was much like him. Tall and thin.

For, though Elle would die before she admitted it, in the deepest, hidden nervous tissue of her being, Elle had imagined up a world where Mr. Gee was her father and her, his favoured child. These false memories brought her more warmth than any amount of alcohol.

 _'Mr. Gee!' Elle cried and flung her arms around his narrow shoulders. 'I'm so sorry to keep you waiting'_

 _'I've fair torn up the fabric of the couch, my dear. I do so desperately need my fix'_

Elle grinned at that. She'd never once inserted a line into him and she certainly hadn't allowed anyone else to either. His veins were pure as could be and Elle was the only one who knew.

 _'Well then, Mr. Gee. I hope you're ready for a night of pretense. Right on. What would you like to see today?'_

He'd always had fun with his requests. He'd ask for her to dress up as Wizards and Dwarves, all with great big beards and bushy eyebrows. It made her laugh, happy and open, and seeing her laugh seem to please him. She'd dress up as a Witch- warts and all. Her costumes were painstakingly made and utterly ridiculous.

Mr. Gee had saved her from a life of wearing little scraps of clothing for money and given her a life where she laughed for it instead. Elle wondered if he knew that she would do anything for him. Kill for him. Die for him.

 _'I had your costume sent for yesterday. Why don't you go find out? I'm loath to ruin surprises, as you very well know' Mr. Gee extended his arm towards the greenroom. 'Go on then, lassie', he urged, 'this one might take you a while to get into. I dare say you might even need help with it'_

Elle stared. Something was off. Something wasn't right. She could taste it on the tip of her tongue and smell it in the back of her nose.

She nodded and set off. It wasn't right to question Mr. Gee. Not right at all. Philip followed closely, matching her stride. He would prepare her for the night as he always had. Dress her down and then up again. Paint her face. Make her look like whatever she was supposed to look like.

She stared at her reflection. What in the world was she wearing? She'd looked at herself from the left. She'd looked at herself from the right. She'd spun around half a dozen times. And yet, Elle just couldn't find the joke.  
She was dressed in a simple tunic of fine, grey linen that lay soft on her skin. Stretchy black leggings and a sensible looking pair of boots completed the look- though what the look was supposed to be was beyond her ken.

Philip clucked.

 _'You aren't going to get any money dressed like that, lassie. You're right drab, you are. Maybe you ought to pull the neck down or the sleeves off'_

Elle had waved him off. Politely, of course. What Mr. Gee wanted, he got. These clothes were neither hinted at sex nor humour. They were merely sensible.

That thought alarmed her.

 _'Don't be a fool Elle. When is dead and gone, you'll be left wanting for Patrons. No one wants a lass dresses like bloody ol Robbin Hood. Ain't no one. Let me atleast brush on some makeup. You're look fair peaky"_

And so he had. He'd made her look like a less wraithlike version of herself, for which she would be unbelievably thankful in the coming days. It annoyed her now, but she'd see the value soon. She didn't care about her face. She needed to go out and ask what he meant by dressed her up like a Sherwood reject. As she looked closely, something struck her, that unsettled her completely, entirely and totally.

She was dressed for a long journey, she realised.

Where to, Miss Elle Young?

* * *

x


	3. Mercenary

**MERCENARY**

 **Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.**

* * *

Sunlight, _bright and golden, threw fragmented shadows in front of her closed eyelids. Shadows shifted and pulsed. She could hear laughter in the periphery of her consciousness. Warmth suffused her entire being._

 _Home. She was home._

 _The smell of cigarette smoke and apricots beckoned her to open her eyes. How long had she tried to replicate that particular smell? She'd even taken to smoking, just so she could feel the peace of home once more._

 _Mum, she called out. Mum, look! I'm home! You're alive again! Mum, I missed you. So much. I don't want to wake up._

 _She felt warm palms on her cheeks and soft breath that tickled her eyelashes._

 _Elle, be brave. Elle, be strong. You can't stay here, sweetling. Papa loves you. Mummy loves you._

 _She felt a gentle kiss on her scrunched up brow. She didn't want to leave. Bad things happened once she left. She knew that. She had to stay._

 _Take her, Jen. Love her. She's all that's good in the world. She's all that's left. Please. Run. Don't look back. Tell her we love her._

* * *

Elle woke to pain. Her head throbbed with the might of a hundred devils and the pain caused waves of nausea to ripple through her cramping belly. Oh God, she thought to herself, what the fuck's happened?  
She was wet.

Was it raining?

She could smell metal in the air and knew she was bleeding. She'd smelt it a hundred times before and yet, this time it made her feel faint. The scent was thick. Viscous.  
She rolled over retched. Gorge had risen swiftly to her mouth and the cramps had forced her last meal out of her body. She felt sick to bones and completely bewildered.

What had happened last night?

What was happening?

The light itself was dull and hazy and though her eyes adjusted to the sudden illumination, Elle felt a strange dizziness start at the back of her skull. Cranium. Occipital.

She tried to drag her body to safety, crawling on elbows and knees in the mud.

Everything faded to black.

* * *

The next time she awoke, she heard voices. Soft whispers and loud cries. An argument? The voices all blurred into the mire of her half-conscious mind. There were people around her. She could feel them moving. She could hear them breathing. Talking. Why were they not helping?

 _Help, she cried out. Help. Please. I can't move. Help._

Not a word came out of her mouth.

Air. She needed air.

She felt her sternum burn with the effort of inhalation. She couldn't. She couldn't.

The hardness of the naked ground on her back had been replaced by soft bedding. Metal creaked as she thrashed out, arms and legs kicking out in the last attempt at survival. Her bloody fingers tore at her neck to sate the burn.

 _Help!_

Gentle hands held her down and once more darkness took her.

* * *

Elle wondered if she was dreaming again.

Or worse, if she was dead.

There was no other explanation. She'd never been this comfortable in her life. Not since, well, not since she'd left her country-side home and her parents with it.  
A thick comforter was tucked all around her body and the warmth of its embrace left her wanting to bury herself deeper and hibernate. There was no one waiting for her on the other side, she knew. If this was what death entailed, she'd have taken the plunge a long time ago.

What had happened? Where was she? The last thing she could remember was looking at herself in the mirror at Cornucopia and wondering why Mr. Gee had given strange looking travel clothing to wear.

Worry about her past and future encroached upon her temporary happiness before a startling discovery made the joy permanent.

She could smell bacon!

Her eyes opened to beautiful, golden light. It streamed in through quaint looking wooden windows. They were painted green and were round! Round windows and golden light and bacon.  
That confirms it, Elle thought to herself. I really am dead.

She drew herself up on the bed, which on sight seemed very small. She was hardly 5'7 and yet she felt like she dwarfed this tiny cot. Looking around she realised that the cot was just the right size. Not for Elle herself, but for the rest of the room. Small tables and smaller chairs and a tiny, little vase adorned the remarkably circular room.

Death was funny. She liked it.

Elle felt no pain. Instead, she felt as if the warmth from the sunlight had seeped deep into her bones, waking in her a vigour that she could hardly deny. She wanted to run and laugh and shake the hands of all the baristas at her local coffee shop.

Hoping out of bed, she decided to investigate some more. She was a giant in the new world! The ceiling was just high enough for her to stand upright without injuring herself. The view out of the window was gorgeous. Lush green meadows rolled over hills as far as the eye could see, broken only by a small, clear-water stream. So much greenery. She felt a twinge of pain deep in her chest. It had been more than a decade since she'd seen so much green.

Ellie marveled at this, feeling strangely like Alice. Had she eaten any forbidden biscuits? Drank any bubbly potions?

Not to her recollection, which admittedly was rather suspect at the moment.

So caught up in her own musings was Elle, that she almost failed to notice what looked like a miniature person, staring up at her in faint alarm with a tea tray balanced between his hip and the door.

She stopped. Blinked. And stared right back.

 _'Hello, Mister! Am I dead then?' she asked of the mini-man._

Mini-man stared some more before clearing his throat. He seemed to be choking on something. Elle wondered if she ought to do something about it.

 _'Dead?' he said, eyes wide, 'Not at all. Well, to be quite honest, you nearly did die but you're not dead. Not any more, at any rate.' He stopped mid-rant before peering closely at her face. '  
'Why? Do you feel a bout of death coming on, Miss Young?'_

Elle was confused.

 _'You know my name.' She stated, feeling a bit miffed._

 _'Why, yes of-course. One does not allow a stranger into their house without enquiring about their name. That would be a wildly stupid idea, wouldn't you agree?' he asked her._

 _'Yes. I suppose so. Yes. I'm only annoyed because you know my name Mr. Man and I don't know yours!'_

 _'Man?' He seemed shocked. 'I'm no man! I'm a hobbit. Of the shire! Where you are!' The hobbit seemed scandalised. 'Miss Ellen, are you sure you're feeling quite alright?'_

Elle pursed her lips. A hobbit? What was a hobbit? Which shire was he talking about? The 'Hobbit' seemed to be oblivious to her bewilderment for he hustled her back to the bedroom before pushing a glass of water into her hand.

 _'Who told you my name, Mister Hobbit?'_

 _'You may called me Bilbo, my dear, or Mister Baggins. None of that Mister Hobbit rot, if you please. Why, if I weren't the only one in the room apart from you, I'd be quite perplexed as to which Hobbit you're talking to.'_

Elle, who was growing more annoyed by the minute made an unhappy grumbly noise that drew a sigh from the Hobbit.

 _'Gandalf brought you here. Said you were a dear old friend of his. Said he found you passed out amongst Farmer Maggot's turnips. He didn't want to risk the good farmer's wrath and so here he brought you. To my Smial'_

 _'Smial, Miss Young. My Hobbit Hole.' he said in response to the blank look on her face. 'Now, my dear. Gandalf didn't tell me anything about how you came to be there, so I was hoping that you would'_

An awkward silence followed his question.

 _'What's a Gandalf?'_

 _'Oh, dear'_

* * *

Two pots of tea later, they'd decided that Elle was an unfortunate victim of memory loss.

She'd obviously been conked on the head a few times, Bilbo mused. Poor girl. She didn't seem very smart, he thought, though he could only barely tell, what with severe memory loss and all.

However, Elle was sure in her speech and courteous in behavior. Her dialect was strange to Bilbo but that didn't worry him unduly- he had hardly stirred past Bagshot Row in his fifty years of living and couldn't claim to know all of Middle Earth's tongues.

She had a big smile, he noticed, one that spanned her entire face and lit up her countenance like merry hearth-fire. She smiled a lot and somehow that made him want to smile back.  
Bilbo wasn't what one would call a joyful sort. He was respectable and held his upper lip firmly in place. Smiling too much gave folk the impression that he wanted to start up a friendly conversation, which he rarely did, and worse, it made people feel the need to bring pies into his Hobbit Hole.

Mr. Bilbo Baggins liked his privacy and no amount of pie would convince him otherwise.

No. Only suspiciously persistent old men seemed to be able to drag him out of his bubble of comfort. Well, up until that very day.

Miss Elle Young was a happy stranger and Bilbo couldn't help but like her. Impeccable manners and a sunny disposition? He found it hard to dislike the girl. And worse? Miss Young was unconcerned. She sat there, all bent over, in his cushy wing chair with a small teacup cradled between her hands, utterly unconcerned.

Sure, she gave him the impression that her head was filled with cloud-fluff but there was no reason one had to be as sharp as a Hobbit. No, no reason at all.

Bilbo was swiftly reconsidering his previous plans to pack her a hearty supper and send her on her merry way once she was healthy again.

He'd cared for her while she was unconscious. Her finely made clothing was wet and muddy and her hair fell to mid-back in a tangled mess. He'd tried to clean her up as best he could but he had been incredibly uncomfortable combing through a woman's hair, conscious or otherwise. He'd given it up as a bad job, half done. He had tried to pluck out the odd leaf and bramble and that, he deemed, had been enough.

Yes, he decided. No reason why he couldn't allow her to intrude for a few more days. Gandalf had promised to come back soon and promised to take the tiny woman-child back with him. A few days wouldn't hurt anyone, Bilbo thought to himself.

No, a few days with company wasn't the end of the world at all!

* * *

Elle knew Bilbo was watching her. She'd felt it enough number of times to know when someone was watching you, judging you. She wondered if she'd pass his test.

She'd learnt early on in life that every single person had a test. A test they'd employ to find if you were worth their time. Most would pass judgment based on appearances while some would actually bother to ask questions. However, a small percentage of people, a very small percentage, would observe, would listen to the answers and then pass judgment.

It pleased her, for some unknown reason, that Bilbo was one amongst the latter group.

He'd held up a lively conversation all whilst quietly making mental notes. She could see it in the way his gaze moved, oscillating between her eyes.

He spoke about books and the tales within them- tales that had fuelled his childhood love for adventure, tales that had made him weep like a besotted maiden, tales that made him close his windows and hide amid his blankets under the bed. He regaled Elle and Elle soaked it all up. She dissected his words and tried to build a more complete picture of Middle Earth or Arda as it was called. She'd learned about their God and their angels and filed away the knowledge for future use. She's learned about Hobbitish customs and Elvish lore. Dwarrow warriors and Dúnedain riders.

She was still reeling but hard won training had given her a legendary poker face.

She had to pull together all threads of her mind and hold it within her tight grasp.

For there were moments, odd moments, where Elle had the distinct feeling Bilbo was speaking a foreign language. The way his lips moved just didn't sit right with her. He wasn't speaking English and to her discomfort, neither was she.

Elle didn't know what to make of this discovery. She knew a handful of foreign languages - German, French, Spanish and she knew she wasn't speaking in any of them.

"Sprichst du Deutsch?" she had asked him, mid conversation. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

Bilbo had blinked at her in surprise before continuing to talk about gardening. He clearly thought she had experienced a momentary lapse in mental acuity and had kindly overlooked it.

Bilbo was harmless, she had realised. A bit slow, perhaps, but harmless. He hadn't questioned her strange accent nor had he questioned the circumstance of her appearance in this Middle Earth. He was perceptive but not too perceptive. Harmless.

She needed friends in this strange world and she was determined to have Bilbo.

After all, one didn't always have to be simple to befriend a simple person.

She sipped her cooling tea and smiled happily at her new friend.

* * *

x


End file.
